


Retail People are the Best Ninjas

by FallingStars5683



Series: Memoirs from Swedish Hell [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Hunk Gives Great Advice, IKEA, M/M, POV Multiple, SO MUCH FLUFF, Song Lyrics, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), ranting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 07:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12722526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingStars5683/pseuds/FallingStars5683
Summary: Keith needed furniture for college.Lance had too much time on his hands at work.Pidge didn't believe in things like true love.Funny how these things come together in the middle of an IKEA.





	Retail People are the Best Ninjas

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in three hours in the middle of the night.  
> This is the first time I've ever written fluff, so bear with my experimentation, please.  
> This has more than one point of view, and they will be separated properly. I hope.  
> Thank you for reading.

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
Moving into the college dorms would’ve been easy, but I needed new furniture.

Now, this wouldn’t have been bad either, but normally I don’t need furniture, and the only place I could think to get stuff on my broke-ass college student budget was IKEA, a.k.a. Hell itself.

The layout was confusing. The items had unreadable names. The card numbers took forever to write. It was a cluttered mess for a first-timer like me, and there was just _so much stuff._ I didn’t understand any of it. It would’ve taken me weeks to navigate it had it not been for my brother Shiro.

He was the fucking IKEA guru. He could get you into any of the area of the store so fast you’d get whiplash. He could find any stupid, tucked-away item with ease. His listing skills were only outmatched by people in the goddamned Pentagon. He knew every shortcut, every corner, every square inch of the store that so many people have lost their sanity in. Personally, I found it quite horrifying.

So anyway, Shiro had decided to be my personal guide through the Swedish vortex, and, begrudgingly, I admitted that he probably was the best man for the job. We took the trip on a perfectly good Saturday morning that could have been spent doing literally anything else. But, oh well, looks like we’re spending it here. My fears were only heightened when we walked in and immediately had to go up an escalator. An _escalator._  Like having a giant first floor wasn’t enough to intimidate shoppers, they had to have a _second floor._ What the hell.

The second floor turned out to be a showroom. I had never seen a showroom like this. Like, yeah, Value City and all those stores had showrooms, but they were beds and shit in neat little row displays. These were their own fucking rooms. Like, it looked like someone lived there. The walls were decorated, and the furniture didn’t always match the sheets, and it looked like an honest-to-god home. It was terrifying.

I wasn’t paying too much attention to what Shiro was rattling on about because I was so overwhelmed, just kinda let him pull me from room to room. There were the regular things you’d find in a room, along with walls and walls of other things, as well as baskets of random things, like pillows, sheets, bath towels, and— _shark plushies?_ What the heck?

But, there they were, in a big wire enclosure, just…there. It was strange and yet fascinating, and I found myself staring at them way longer than was strictly necessary. Shiro had to grab my arm and pull me along. “Come on, Keith, we need to get you a desk.”

But his actions proved to be for naught: as he pulled me into Workspaces, we saw a small crowd gathered around a group of little personal desks. Several of them were stifling laughs and taking pictures. As we got closer, we realized that the source of the commotion was yet another plushie, wearing a tiny polo and sitting at the desk with his fins poised to type on one of the model laptops. It was hilarious. I loved it. It was like this little symbol that maybe everyone in this building isn’t some sort of mindless creature – that there was still an outside world.

Looking at it, I got the weirdest sensation down my back, like someone was watching me, but when I looked around, there was no one there. It was creepy as hell. My awareness fully pulled back to the present, I grabbed Shiro and made a break for the next room. Hopefully whoever the hell was following me didn’t pursue.

\--[ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
“Oh my god, he’s perfect.”

Once again, Pidge knocked her head against the nearby display of nightstands. “I reiterate, _you literally just saw this guy._ How the hell are you supposed to know whether he’s the one? And, come to think of it, since when have you been letting guys be the one?”

Hag. She was supposed to be supportive of me in my time of need, but instead, she was just letting me suffer in my own heartsickness. “Um, for your information, I came out as bi several weeks ago. It's you who wasn't paying attention."

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t hear it because it probably happened during another of your drama whirlwinds.”

“And I _know_  he’s the one,” I cut her off, “because I felt it. In my heart. It was love at first sight.”

“Uh-huh.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, you better get back to stocking, because I’m not getting my ass busted over your true love.” And with that, she slipped away through whatever crack in the wall she had found the previous day.

“Nonbeliever!” I yelled after her, causing some stares. Whoops. Maybe it’s time I get going. Gotta plant my next shark, after all.

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
After a half an hour of careful deliberation over desks, I was fed up with life. What is this. I just. Why. This was ridiculous. I just wanted to go home. Curl up in my bed. Sleep for a year.

And oh look, the next room was Kitchen. Immediately, I started scouting the place for a knife I could use to end my misery, but no such luck. And, to add insult to injury, Shiro decided it would be a good idea to look over some stuff _while we’re here. If we’re here any longer, one of us isn’t making it out alive._

It was then that I saw it. Another shark, this time with a chef’s hat and apron, placed on a cutting board with several vegetables in a very _come hither_  fashion. It was incredible. It meant that that the last one wasn’t a dream, that there really were other sane people in this store.

I snapped a picture real quick with my phone, then spun around quickly to see if anyone was watching. Just before it whipped out of sight, I caught the eye of an employee with caramel skin and ocean-blue eyes. Huh. At least now the sharkmaster slash stalker had a face.

And it wasn’t a bad-looking one, either.

\--{ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
I ducked back into Wall Units, completely entranced. Ohhhhh my god. This guy. He was going to be the end of me. The way his face lit up at the display, he looked like an angel.

“There’s no way he looked like an angel, you drama queen.”

Of course. “Shouldn’t you be stocking something?” I asked Pidge.

“Already done.” She sat down beside me. “You ever gonna not say all your thoughts out loud?”

“Shut your fuck, Pidge, I’m freaking out here. And how do _you_  know he didn’t look like an angel?”

“Because angels don’t decide to live in West Chester, Ohio.”  
_"Well, maybe this one did, okay?"_ I was getting seriously miffed. “You know what, I don’t need your help. I have Hunk.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “In the IT department? What can he do?”

I simply smiled. “He’s my secret weapon, obviously.”

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
It really happened in Bedroom, though I didn’t know it at the time.

We—as in the steadily growing audience—were admiring the latest shark display of a family getting ready for bed, when the song changed overhead. It wouldn’t have been something I noticed normally, but I happened to really like that song. I was bopping, kinda zoning out, and Shiro’s preoccupation with sheets and pillows flew out of my head as _the part_ came up. It was my part. Without even registering the other people around me, I busted out:

_PB! PB! Who's Peabo Bryson?_

_Two years ago, I renewed my license_

_Anyway, why’d I start my verse like that?!_

_You can suck a dick, or you can suck on a ballsack_

_No, no, I don’t endorse that, pause that, abort that_

_Just the other day mi go a-London, saw dat, kids down Hyde street_

_Paparazzi, all dat_

_Hey, hey, what can I say?_

_Day da-da-day da-day da-day day_

_Coming through the club all the girls in the back of me_

_This ain't football, why the fuck they tryna tackle me?_

_Really, I peeped dude at the bar like really, looking like he wanna good time like really_

_Said he had got a friend for my home girl Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily_

As I finished, I realized two things:

First, the crowd that just been focused on the shark family just a moment before had suddenly formed a loose circle around me. One girl had even pulled out her phone and had probably gotten the whole thing. It was pressing and suffocating, like they all wanted me to keep going. Like they expected something from me. It scared the hell out of me, and in that moment, I wanted to dive under one of the beds and never come out.

That was when I realized the second thing.

The shark employee, the cute guy with crazy blue eyes, was simply staring at me in awe, not even bothering to try to hide himself. It was like someone had just taken the universe and realigned it just for him. And it was that one thing, that one look, that changed it all.

In the span of three seconds, every muscle in my body relaxed completely for the first time in a very long time. I turned to Shiro, who was just standing there, completely stone-faced, and gave him a look right back.

Eventually his mouth twisted into a small smile. “Really, Keith? Nicki Minaj? That’s your weakness?”

“Well—” Great, the one thing he would get out of all that. “We all have our guilty pleasures, alright?”

“I mean, yeah,” Shiro agreed. “It’s just, I didn’t think yours would make you sound like a pop whore wannabe.”

_"Jesus fucking Christ, Shiro."_

\--[ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
“That’s it. That’s it. It’s over. He’s slain me, and I am dead on this linoleum floor.”

“Well, your corpse better get back to sweeping the floor, or else it’ll lose wages for the day.”

“That’s not how it works, Pidge.” I did get off the floor, though. It was pretty gross. Not that it really mattered because holy _shit the hottest thing ever had just happened to me and I was just jasdljfnlajn;jv—_

The dream guy – the one I’d heard the larger one call Keith – had just busted a hot rhyme in the middle of IKEA like it was nothing. Like he and that beat were the only things in the store that mattered. I was supposed to use that song to try to woo him, but it had completely backfired. It had resulted in the _single most attractive thing I had ever seen,_ and I knew in that moment that, no matter what else happened that day, Keith would be mine.

“Please don’t get me involved in your harebrained scheme. I really don’t want to be.”

I looked at my small friend. Pidge was pulling her long auburn hair up into a ponytail to keep it from snagging in her huge glasses. She was small, fast, able to get around the store better than any ninja…

Hmmm…

“Too late, Pidge.”

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
We were making our way through the Children’s section, originally hell-bent on not stopping, but I saw a fin out of the corner of my eye and I had to stop.

This time, it was a group of sharks playing basketball, with little jerseys and a plush ball to match. This display seemed to be drawing more attention than the others, though. As I got closer, I realized why.

The sharks seemed innocent enough from a distance, but I could only see the note on the back of one of the players from up close. How I missed it, I will never know, because that shit was typed out big in bold lettering:

**ROSES ARE RED**  
**YOUR JACKET IS TOO**  
**I WANT TO HEAR THAT PRETTY VOICE SAY**  
**“I LOVE YOU BOO”**

It was mortifying and so amazing, because I knew exactly whom he was talking about. I was the only one I had seen in the whole store so far with a red jacket. It looked like others were starting to figure it out, too, because some of the older folk were nudging me and giving me winks, and the young girls were squealing like pigs in heaven. Great, this had become some sort of reality show for them.

I couldn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it.

\--[ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
He saw it. He saw the note. And he was smiling.

I felt close to melting point, holy crap. “God, even his _mullet_ is cute.”

“…Alright, I know I missed something, but I didn’t realize it had extended to that phrase ever being able to leave Lance’s mouth.” At some point, Hunk had gone on break and decided to spend it with us. His knee bumped a desk, and he looked down at it with a wince. Something about IKEA furniture really riled up Hunk’s angry engineer side, which was both hilarious and terrifying. He pulled a piece of candy out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “What exactly is going on? You wouldn’t tell me when you asked me to put on that trashy song.”

“Lance has a new crush and feels the urge to ruin our lives again with it.” Pidge, the ever-sarcastic bitch. Ah, well. She wasn’t wrong. I was being annoying.

To his credit, Hunk refrained from rolling his eyes this time. “Dude, are you doing the secret note thing again? The secret note thing never works. You should know this by now.”

“Hey, that last girl was close!”

“Sure.”

“And anyway, I’m not doing the secret note thing. I’m putting them on my shark displays.”

At this, Hunk looked a little more relaxed. I wasn’t sure if that relieved or scared me. “Hey, you’re taking my advice, in a way! Just telling them how you feel!”

I thought about that for a moment. Yeah, Hunk had said that on several occasions (which I’d ignored), and I guessed putting the notes out in the open was kind of a way of telling them how I feel, but… “This is way cooler, though. None of that awkward mushy stuff.”

“…Are you a child? That’s what a relationship needs to survive!”

“I’ve told him this,” Pidge cut in. “He doesn’t listen.”

Of course, I listened. I listened to everything they’d ever said about being in a relationship. It was just…alright, maybe I was being childish. Truth was, and they knew this, I had never been in a relationship—at least not one that had meant anything. My pulling of these little things at my job were supposed to be a stupid way of trying to find somebody that really connected with me. For some reason, I seriously thought it would work. It hadn’t.

Until now.

“Well, I’ll figure that out later! For now…” I took another peek around the corner at the guy— _Keith_ —as he and his friend looked at backpacks.

Hunk came up behind me and looked at Keith, too. “For now, you just have to figure out how to go talk to him.”

“…Yeah.”

“Well, luckily, you have another floor until he’s gone. Might wanna hurry, though.” And with a final clap on the back, he turned and headed back towards the IT room.

I watched him go, nervousness building in my gut. Oh, boy. That was the first time I didn’t hear Hunk complain about the focus of my obsession. That meant he really knew there was a shot.

I just had to hope I didn’t fuck it up.

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
The elevators were probably worse than the escalators.

I mean, yeah, I understood that they were meant to fit people and their carts, but my stomach had never done well in elevators, and the sheer size difference made the experience so much worse. The only positive I could find was that the elevator meant that this trip was at least halfway over.

Well, it was mostly a positive.

I had yet to meet the guy that had been setting up the sharks— _the blue-eyed man, I was sure of it_ —and it kinda bummed me out. It would’ve been nice to at least put a name to a face, maybe a phone number. We could’ve been friends, maybe even more.

Whoa. That felt weird. For the first time in a while, I wanted to emotionally bond with someone that wasn’t Shiro. It would’ve rattled me more had it not been for the fact that I simply didn’t put much more thought into it.

My head was still drifting around on the upper floor, searching for a beautiful man with a love for sharks.

\--[ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
“Pidge, I really need your help.”

Pidge glanced up from where she was rearranging small cushions into order. “Why are you asking me? I don’t have anything to offer you on this little mission of yours. You don’t even work on the lower floor, so getting down there without someone noticing will be suspicious.”

“I’m asking you because of all that. Please. You’re the only one I know who can help me pull this off.”

I’m not sure what it was—maybe my tone of voice, maybe my word choice—but Pidge stopped stacking cushions, straightened up to her full height, and looked me dead in the face, scrutinizing every detail. We stood like that for what felt like a while, in silence, not moving. Finally, she looked away, grabbed one more cushion—a red one—and placed it gently on the blue cushions. Without looking at me, she said, “Alright. This is crazy, but what do you need?”

I could’ve sung, I was so happy. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you, Pidge!_ You’re the greatest!”

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
I was a little disappointed. There hadn’t been any shark displays on the first floor so far, and we had managed to _crawl_  through Tableware, Cookshop, Bed Textiles, Bathroom, and Textiles. It really shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but Shiro insisted on looking through everything, so it gave me more unwanted time to think about Blue, as my brain had come to call him.

It was maddening. Every time we walked into a new area, I would catch myself looking for more sharks, which would lead me to thinking about the cheesy note, which would lead to thinking about Blue, and Blue’s eyes, and how well they complimented his dark skin, and the cute splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the brilliant pink of his lips, which would end in me hiding my scarlet face from Shiro _every single time_. Why? Why was this happening? I had only seen him a couple times, which shouldn’t be enough for anyone to remember a face in that much detail, so _why wouldn’t those shimmering ocean eyes leave me alone?_

As much as I hated to admit it, there could only be one plausible explanation, and it was one I refused to look at.

I pulled myself back to Earth with a pinch of my arm. Right. College stuff. We’re here because I’m going to college soon. Need to focus. I looked up from the floor to see Shiro giving me a concerned look.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Keith?” he asked again. “If you’re feeling sick, we can come back some other time.”

A few hours before, that would’ve been like hearing that Christmas was going to be early that year, but I heard myself say, “ _No!_  No, no, I’m alright, Shiro! Seriously, I’m good.”

He gave me The Look. You know The Look. The one that all big brothers have, like, _I know you’re bullshitting me, but I’ll let it go because you’re at least trying to do this._ “Are you sure?” he asked one more time, just to be an ass.

“Seriously, Taki.” I pulled out the nickname from when we were little kids. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Shiro grimaced at the name, but pushed the cart into Rugs and Flooring.

Immediately, he gravitated towards the small rugs hanging on the right wall. However, my attention was grabbed by the flooring on the left—the flooring actually on the floor—or, rather, what was on it.

There was a shark.

A real, honest-to-goodness, IKEA-brand toy plushie shark, like the ones I had been searching for since I stepped off the elevator. It wasn’t dressed up or posed in any way, just lying there, but it felt like my heart had just filled with helium.

I walked over to the plushie and picked it up. Maybe it had been dropped...There was another one. And another around the corner, making a trail into Home Organization. Without dropping the first plush, I immediately set off to follow the trail, ducking around a few other shoppers.

In the middle of the next area lay another plushie, but this time it lay on top of one of those clothing sorters. Taped to its back was another note. I knelt down and read:

_The moment I saw you, my life fell into place._

The scarlet came back to my face tenfold, and I had to pull my hood up to hide it. I couldn’t believe this guy. He was so sappy. It was amazing. I had never gotten anything like this before from someone who was basically a stranger.

It wouldn’t stop me from wanting to see more, though.

I looked up from the note and saw another plush, this one pointing into Lighting. I followed without another thought.

\--[ **Pidge** ]--  
I didn’t think I would enjoy helping Lance with his little scheme, but the more I helped him, the more I found myself getting invested. It had gotten to the point that I was silently cheering Lance on from my hiding spot. I just hoped he didn’t screw this up. This was a major thing I had just helped him do, not to mention the amount of trouble we’d probably both be in with our supervisor if we were caught.

Ah, well. The best things in life involve a risk, right?

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
The amount of lights in the room nearly blinded me. I guessed I should’ve expected that. It was the Lighting department.

The dizzying brightness didn’t stop me, though, from seeing the next shark laying off to the right. I ran off in that direction, only to lose the trail for a moment. It picked right back up again when I caught the next one tucked into a corner. Following it led to a back aisle, full of incredibly delicate lights. It was beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself from marveling at the handiwork. It was so captivating, I almost didn’t notice the shark plush with the second note lying on the shelf. It was easy to read under the calm glow:

_Your laugh lit up my entire world._

The blush was just a new constant on my face. In fact, I was enjoying it. It was a reminder that there was something in this store that I knew I really wanted. _Sorry, Shiro,_  I thought, _but I’m gonna have to do my own shopping._

I looked to the right, and there was the next shark. It seemed to give me a look, like, _Hello? You’ve got somewhere to be! Hurry up!_

I was more than happy to oblige.

\--[ _ **Lance**_ ]--  
It was happening. I was going to vomit.

Seriously, the nervousness was going to gain sentience and crawl out of me if it climbed any higher up my throat. Keith was coming so close to the end of the trail, and Pidge and I could be caught by the supervisor at any time, and I was _freaking the hell out._  But, no. I forced myself to breathe. In, out.

Everything was going to be okay. It was. I had to believe that this time, things would be different. If not…I didn’t even want to think about it. No, everything would be fine. It would. I just knew it.

\--[ **Keith** ]--  
The path of plushies pulled me into Wall Decorations and Mirrors, where I saw a small crowd gathered in a corner of the small area. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were looking at: someone—Blue—had pulled several mismatched seven-foot full-length standing mirrors into a wide circle with one opening, and the crowd was walking in and out, giggling and talking. I made my way over, and several shoppers seemed to recognize me from the showroom floor, because they made way for me, even gently moving others aside so that I could get through.

“Thanks, you guys,” I said to them. Then I walked into the circle, which had a stool with another plushie lying on it. This shark seemed to smile warmly at me as I read the note on its back:

_The reason I feel this way can be seen when you look around you._

So, I did. I looked around. All I saw was my own face. And I realized that’s what Blue had meant—I was the reason he felt the way he did. But there was the question: in the end, _how did I make him feel?_  I certainly know how he made me feel, but was it reciprocated? I took another glance back down at the note and caught, right at the bottom, in a hasty handwriting:

_You know where to go. Go get ‘em, champ._

I smiled. Of course, I knew where to go. There was only one room left in the store, right?

Leaving the doll where it was, I exited the circle and made a beeline for the next area.

I never thought fake plants could look nice, but, at that moment, nothing looked as good as the faux succulents making a large ring in the center of Home Decorations. Other shoppers walked around it, not daring to go inside, but getting pictures and giggling all the same. Lying in the center, right as expected, was the final shark plush. This one, unlike the others, wore a shirt, a blue IKEA employee polo with the name LANCE stitched into the front. It also had another note on the back, but this one was much longer than the others. Steeling myself, I picked up the doll and read:

_Keith,_

_You don’t know me. To everyone here in the store, I’m just another faceless worker, doomed to work in the hell of retail for the rest of my life. And I had pretty much made peace with that._

_But then you showed up._

_At first, I thought I was seeing things, because I didn’t understand how any one person could be so beautiful, so effortlessly. But, there you were, walking into the showroom looking like you wanted to be there even less than me, and, suddenly, the idea of “love at first sight” didn’t seem quite so crazy._

_In the span of a few seconds, I saw my entire life before me. This wasn’t something new—I constantly thought about the nondirection of my life—but this time it was different. This time, instead of just seeing a lifetime, I saw a future in front of me. I saw myself getting into college, studying hard to get a degree, finding a good steady job, getting a good house, even playing with a son of my own. But it all happened while I was right by your side._

_So, yeah. You may not know me, and I may not know you yet, but what I know is that, no matter what else happens today, I’d like to start my future with you by my side._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Lance_

I had never understood before when someone said that they were so happy they had cried. It had seemed so backwards to me, like it wasn’t something to cry about. At that moment, though, I understood it perfectly. I was standing there, holding that plush doll, staring at the final words of the letter, and tears were streaming down my face because I felt so happy. It was the most incredible feeling, like something that had been binding me in a horrible way had just shattered and I could breathe again. I was so fucking ecstatic, so stupefied, so amazed that there really was someone out there who could feel like that about me, of all people, that the dam I had so carefully constructed to hold it all in fell apart within moments. The world fell away, and it was just me, that doll, that letter, that single breath in time, that was everything that mattered.

And then—

“Oh, god! You’re crying! I made you cry! Shit, I’m an idiot! I’m so sorry!”

The world came back _instantly_ , and I spun around to face him—Blue— _Lance_ —now coming out of the shortcut at the other side of the wall. He wasn’t wearing his work shirt anymore, but instead, a soft blue hoodie with white lining and his work slacks. He immediately ran over and started to gently wipe the tears from my cheeks, all the while muttering curses under his breath. “Crap, I can’t believe I made you cry, I don’t know what I was thinking, what in the world—”

“Lance,” I croaked out.

Lance stopped dead, staring at my face. His own had gone an impressive shade of maroon, and I was sure my blotchy, blushing cheeks could’ve rivalled that. I was about to ask him if he was alright when he said, “You said my name.”

I gave him a look. “Yeah? Because it’s your name.”

“Sorry, just—” His voice cracked. “I don’t hear it very often.”

That got a little laugh out of me, which in turn made him beam a fucking rainbow, which made me smile harder, which led to both of us laughing harder than I thought I even could. It felt great, and it had happened because of a random IKEA worker who had taken the time to try to connect. Because of _Lance._ “Lance.”

“What?”

“I just wanted to say it again.” I threw my arms around him, letting his warmth envelop me. “Lance. Lance. Laaaaaaaaaaaance.”

He laughed a little more, hugging me back. He was a little taller than me and I loved it. “Keith.”

“What?”

“What, I can’t say yours back? Keeeeeeiiiiiiith.”

A pleasant warmth spread through my whole body at the sound of that. “Sounds good,” I mumbled.

“Sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you.”

I looked up from his chest, a little miffed. “I said—”

Lance kissed me on the nose.

I was on fire. That was the only way to describe the heat that went coursing through my body and lighting up my heart.

He must have seen the stunned look on my face, because he gave one last godlike chuckle. “So, would you like to go somewhere later? There’s a new bagel place over on Centre Point.”

It was an invitation. A small invitation to a plethora of possibilities. I gave him the look again. “Obviously.”

And then I kissed him on the mouth.

It was better than I could have ever hoped. It was the world. It was Heaven itself. It was warm and amazing and—

" _There_  you are, Keith! I got worried after you disappeared…um…who’s this?”

We sprang apart so fast it was like someone had run an electric current through our feet. Shiro had come into the room from the Mirrors, looking annoyed as hell. And then I realized that everything that had just happened between Lance and I, had happened in the middle of fucking IKEA. The crowd of people that had slowly gathered were clapping and whistling, some with phones out, and another employee, a small girl with huge glasses, stood off to the side, smiling and shaking her head. “Um…”

“Hey, man, chill.” The female employee came away from her spot on the wall to join us. “They’ve just found each other. True love and all that.”

Lance turned to her, irate. “When you say it like that, Pidge, it sounds stupid!”

“Trust me, I know it’s not.” Pidge turned and winked at me. I realized then that she was the accomplice, the one who had left the second note. I couldn’t have been more grateful to her if I tried.

“Well…” Shiro rubbed his face. “We still have stuff to do, things to haul. Keith, it’s nice that you’ve got…someone…but you’re going to college this fall. You’re a busy guy. So, yeah, we need to go.”

My mood soured in an instant, then I remembered: “Hey, can I get your number? So that we can…meet up later?” It felt weird to even say it.

“Shit.” Lance patted his pants. “I don’t have my phone, and I don’t remember my number, either.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Look at the other side of the note.”

I looked back down to where I was still clutching the shark plushie in a vice grip, and carefully pulled off the note. On the back, in Pidge’s chicken scratch, were two phone numbers. The first was Lance’s, the second, hers. I smiled and looked back up at the little woman. “You’re awesome.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She rolled her eyes again and grabbed Lance’s arm. “Come on, get your shirt. We have to make it back up to Showroom before we get lectured even worse by the supervisor.”

That was it. All the time we could have together just then. But I could tell that we both knew there would be so much more. “I’ll see you later, Keith,” Lance said to me.

“In a while, Lance,” I answered right back.

As we parted ways, Shiro started to lecture me on the importance of staying together, but I wasn’t really listening. I was looking around at all the cardboard boxes full of Swedish-made furniture, and thinking of a blue-eyed boy with a shark doll. And I thought to myself, _Maybe it isn’t so bad here after all._

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a kudos if you liked it! It would really help out a lot!  
> Here's a map of the IKEA, so that you don't get lost:  
>   
> I have a dumb Tumblr blog: fallingstars5683


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